It wasn’t a great game by any stretch of the imagination, but you know what, sometimes those scrappy hard-fought 1-0 wins when you are not playing that well are better for you than any 4-0 win could ever be.

Let’s be honest, Cardiff City played nowhere near as well as they are capable of against Sheffield Wednesday.

It was a very scrappy affair, Wednesday had come to put everyone behind the ball and sit on things and it looked for a long time as if that was going to be enough to frustrate Mackay and his side.

But they stuck to it and showed real character to hang in there and keep going even though they weren’t playing well and get the winning goal via Conway.

What I mean about a result like that doing you good is that you can be sure the Bluebirds dressing room was buzzing after that.

That will really have brought them together and instilled team spirit. The players will know they have not played well, but the fact they took the three points will be a big confidence boost for them.

For me, the next two months are going to be absolutely massive for Cardiff and, with Christmas coming up, they could not be better placed at all.

They’ve taken 13 points from the last 15 on offer and they know now they can play below their best and take the three points at home and they are starting to be believe they can go away now and get wins on the road too.

The form they are in right now is indeed Championship-winning form. It’s the first time they’ve really achieved that this season and now they have to keep the momentum going, they have to keep applying the pressure.

Against Sheffield Wednesday, I think there were a couple of factors which meant the Bluebirds lacked the fluency and rhythm they have often shown during this campaign so far.

The first one was all the stuff about former manager Dave Jones coming back. It does change the focus of the game when something like that happens, it always does, but Cardiff managed to ride that out.

The other factor I think was that there was another change of personnel in the line-up.

Sure, it was players returning, but after recent performances, you change things around and it can take time to get back on an even keel. I think that is what we saw against Wednesday a bit.

There were not really any stand-out performances from Cardiff, but it was a good battling team performance and sometimes those are the best kind of displays to give.

One person I would like to single out, though, is goalkeeper David Marshall.

With the score at 0-0, the Owls had a really good chance when they were through on goal and Marshall pulled off a really tremendous save to deny them.

It was a very big moment and credit must go to Marshall for keeping his concentration and making the save because he’d had virtually nothing else to do up until then.

One thing for sure is that if that had gone in then Cardiff would have had a tough time getting back for a draw let alone a win with Wednesday sure to sit on what they would have had.

But it was a big victory in the end for the Bluebirds and a big confidence boost at the same time.

There’s been a few games now that Cardiff have had this season where they have played pretty averagely, but they’ve come away with the three points.

If you are a side which is going to get out of this division that is the kind of thing you are going to have to do.

I hope now this result sees Mackay and his men move on in a positive and confident frame of mind because it is games like the one against Wednesday that potential champions grab the three points from.

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